"I have written a long letter. I would write a great deal more if I thought I could ever express the gratitude I feel to you. But I am going to be always,
"Your grateful and faithful friend,
"ALBERT CHARLTON."
This letter set Isabel's mind in a whirl of emotions. She sincerely admired Lurton, but she had never thought of him as a lover. Albert's gratitude and praises would have made her happy, but his confidence that she would marry Lurton vexed her. And yet the thought that Lurton might love her made it hard to keep from dreaming of a new future, brighter than any she had supposed possible to her.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
MR. LURTON'S COURTSHIP.
After the death of Mrs. Plausaby, Isa had broken at once with her uncle-in-law, treating him with a wholesome contempt whenever she found opportunity. She had made many apologies for Plausaby's previous offenses—this was too much even for her ingenious charity. For want of a better boarding-place, she had taken up her abode at Mrs. Ferret's, and had opened a little summer-school in the village schoolhouse. She began immediately to devise means for securing Charlton's release. Her first step was to write to Lurton, but she had hardly mailed the letter, when she received Albert's, announcing that Lurton was coming to see her; and almost immediately that gentleman himself appeared again in Metropolisville. He spent the evening in devising with Isa proper means of laying the evidences of Charlton's innocence before the President in a way calculated to secure his pardon. Lurton knew two Representatives and one Senator, and he had hope of being able to interest them in the case. He would go to Washington himself. Isa thought his offer very generous, and found in her heart a great admiration for him. Lurton, on his part, regarded Isabel with more and more wonder and affection. He told her at last, in a sweet and sincere humility, the burden of his heart. He confessed his love with a frankness that was very winning, and with a gentle deference that revealed him to her the man he was—affectionate, sincere, and unselfish.
If Isabel had been impulsive, she would have accepted at once, under the influence of his presence. But she had a wise, practical way of taking time to think. She endeavored to eliminate entirely the element of feeling, and see the offer in the light in which it would show itself after present circumstances had passed. For if Lurton had been a crafty man, he could not have offered himself at a moment more opportune. Isa was now homeless, and without a future. If you ask me why, then, she did not accept Lurton without hesitation, I answer that I can no more explain this than I can explain all the other paradoxes of love that I see every day. Was it that he was too perfect? Is it easier for a woman to love a man than a model? People are not apt to be enamored of monotony, even of a monotony of goodness. Was it, then, that Isa would have liked a man whose soul had been a battle-field, rather than one in whom goodness and faith had had an easy time? Did she feel more sympathy for one who had fought and overcome, like Charlton, than for one who had never known a great struggle? Perhaps I have not touched at all upon the real reason for Isa's hesitation. But she certainly did hesitate. She found it quite impossible to analyze her own feelings in the matter. The more she thought about it, the more hopeless her confusion became.
It is one of the unhappy results produced by some works of religious biography, that people who copy methods, are prone to copy those not adapted to their own peculiarities. Isabel, in her extremity of indecision, remembered that some saint of the latter part of the last century, whose biography she had read in a Sunday-school library-book, was wont, when undecided in weighty matters, to write down all the reasons, pro and con, and cipher out a conclusion by striking a logical balance. It naturally occurred to Isa that what so good and wise a person had found beneficial, might also prove an assistance to her. So she wrote down the following: